


The threads which comprise emptiness

by factual



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Original Character(s), urban angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-22
Updated: 2012-06-22
Packaged: 2017-11-08 08:28:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/441202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/factual/pseuds/factual
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[post-Reichenbach] John Watson turns thirty-nine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The threads which comprise emptiness

**Author's Note:**

> An indulgent treatise on the moments leading up to drunk casual sex in an alternative universe that doesn't have to rely on Grindr / I wrote this while listening to an unconventional cover of a Cantopop song called "Forget Him."

i.

John Watson recently turned thirty-nine. In a practically non-publicized event, he indulged himself at the cigar lounge two blocks from his Mile End flat. It was close to nine when he arrived and it was exactly eleven o’ clock when he left. He didn’t feel drunk but to seal the deal he went to a pub. He knew the owner, called Andrew, who fed him a steady stream of scotch and soda.

Time seemed to pass slowly. People walked past and he recollected little of them. All he saw was a blur of colors, movement; even the words seemed to melt into one another; leaning, as if with a sigh, into the deep abyss of the zinc bar. He misheard conversations. Language was futile. At one point a girl asked him for a light and he blurted, “I don’t smoke.” The girl, with her hair tied back and her large glasses slipping down the bridge of her nose, was slightly annoyed.

She sat down next to him. She ordered a gin and tonic and finished it so quickly he looked up at her. She looked like any other twentysomething hipster: vintage blouse, leather purse, worn brogues. Must’ve been waiting for someone, and she kept waiting. She was not wearing a watch. Didn’t ever ask for the time.

The pub was half-busy with Queen Mary students. They did not interest him. Too often they served only to perpetuate a healthy image of youthfulness. They reminded him of how much he had lost. So he concentrated on the elderly couple at the other end of the room. The woman was holding her husband’s hand and they seemed to be deeply grossed in their private conversation. Looking at their reflection in the mirror, John wondered what they were talking about.

“The tests came back positive from the hospital.”

“Sarah mailed us a package.”

“The Millers’ baby spoke his first word today. They’re so proud.”

“You really should quit smoking.”

The woman’s husband had his other hand held to his chest. Every so often he drank small sips of his drink. The woman had a calm yet foreboding look on her wrinkled face. It was a face marked for inherent sadness. It was a face that had survived the last great war and did not know how to process a society programmed for Facebook and Instagram. She was wearing a collared flower chemise top and a grey cardigan. For five minutes she allowed herself to cry into the sleeve of her husband’s Oxford shirt. John suddenly realized why he was so fascinated with her. In some way she reminded him of his own mother.

ii.

He let himself get picked up in Whitechapel. Up until that point he had tried very hard to look calm. He assured himself that he was calm. Once he whispered it: “I am okay.” Just once he gripped his hand very tightly but he let go; there was no one to see that. He breathed twice and when he looked up a student was sitting next to him.

(There was a period in John’s life he would shamelessly label: Bliss. He was not an outwardly sentimental man; yes, he could show emotion when he wanted to. Years spent in the military had taught him to be wary. It’s okay to get wounded because there are doctors present but flesh wounds are and will always be a rookie mistake.

Mycroft flippantly suggested a vacation. He could have his pick of locales: Seychelles, the Caribbean, Florida. It would all be quietly arranged. John thought the offer insulting. “I’m not suicidal,” he insisted, and Mycroft’s chiseled response: “Neither was he.”)

The boy’s name was Ferdinand. He was twenty-two but he had the mannerisms of an apologetic schoolboy, the one who got scared stiff after nearly knocking over Aunt Jamie’s antique tea set. He was half-English, a quarter-French, a quarter-Italian and had finally returned to his father’s homeland to pursue an ultimately worthless degree in philosophy. He was in the midst of writing his thesis, a monograph on the existential crises of Godard’s male leads. He had a slow way of talking, like he was trying to put it off. Or maybe he was just picky about his choice of words. John thought: He’s scared of the job market.

Ferdinand was not scared of the job market. He was scared of larger, more abstract ideas, and lately he was frightened by his own masculinity. He was frustrated. He didn’t know what to do with his ideas and himself. He saw John and wanted him. For five tortuous minutes, he’d gripped his drink and thought about the things he wanted to do to John. It was funny how the feeling had overcome him. Twenty minutes ago there was Marie and now there was a lonely-looking man twice his age. “I want you,” he wanted to say, in a clear and concise language. “I want to be lonely and sad with you. I want to fuck you.” Instead he bought John another drink. He told John about his thesis and what graduate-level work he was already doing. John told him not to be a doctor. Ferdinand asked: “Why?”

“You’ll never save all the lives you want, but the title tricks you. It falsely empowers you into thinking you can.” By this point John was very drunk.

“Do you want to leave?” the boy asked.

“I take it back. I’m glad to know that there are still philosophy students. We used to secretly make fun of them. What good is there, really, of reading Kant and Marx and Engels? What good is there to knowing Rousseau when you’re dying on the field? Bleeding all over a poor bugger. Bad taste, that chap. We thought. We forget that we die anyway. We’re none of us truly in-invincible. But philosophy brings us closer to humanity. And I just forget. I—I can’t help but think—”

The boy leaned over. Though tentative at first, he rested his hand on top of John’s. John’s left hand was curled up in a tight fist and he felt lightheaded. “Do you want to leave?” he asked kindly.

“Yes,” said John, very quietly.

iii.

Afterward there wasn’t much to say. He left before Ferdinand woke up. On his desk there were philosophy hardcovers, stray papers, a flyer for an ice cream social. Fountain pens, an almost empty pack of Pall Malls, wet matches. Ferdinand’s typewriter was carefully set in the corner.

John walked through the early morning haze. He was feeling hazy himself; the brief clarity that used to come after sex was now a delayed reaction, and all he wanted to do was sleep. He was waiting for the click. That would sustain him. The day was Sunday, the eighth of July. In a few hours, the mail would be delivered, the next door neighbor’s cat would screech, and it was a new day.

(He remembers a few things: the stale warmness of the humidity, a breeze that lasted for two seconds, the gentle green of someone’s front yard, the plastic bag full of condoms.)

Somehow he wound up in a bakery. The alluring aroma of the oven, the hum in the refrigerators; these sensory details held more appeal than the absolute certainty of reality. He sat at a raised table by the window that faced an alleyway. The alleyway served as a corridor to the kitchen of the bakery. He drank his coffee and ate a croissant, tearing it off piece by piece. Three men approached the left end of the alley and entered a dispute. One man was holding onto a paper bag and other two were badgering him. Finally, the fists connected: the blows were steady and slow and solid. Everything was muffled by the glass of the shop.

John looked up but he was still dazed. Uncharacteristically absentminded, he was thinking about the time they drove to Devon for the case and almost ran over a squirrel that had run across the road. Petrified, the squirrel was motionless. The car swerved. Thankfully, no casualty. “That was close,” John shouted, happy to be alive.


End file.
